Case Number 27056: Small Claims Court

Anna Nicole

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All Rise...

Judge Bill Gibron is still waiting for the Uschi Digart biopic!

The Charge

The Price of Fame? Oh, about a buck-fifty.

The Case

She died six years ago. Why it took so long to bring the tragic tale of
Marilyn Monroe / Jayne Mansfield / Mamie Van Doren wannabe Anna Nicole Smith to
the screen (small screen, that is) can easily be answered in one sentence: No
one gave a sh*t. No really. No one cared. No one cared when she was alive,
ridiculing her obvious substance abuse issues and making her depressing decent
into full blown cartoon mockery-otherwise known as E!'s The Anna Nicole
Show-a national laughing stock. Indeed, if it wasn't for her titties and her
unfettered desire to show them to the world, her talent-free blonde bimbo act
would have no meaning in 2014. But you know The Lifetime Network. They never met
a tawdry, tantalizing subject they couldn't exploit with their own patented
version of veiled truth. So they hired Agnes "Who?" Bruckner (24), slapped on a fake chest piece, and
began the process of burying the former Vicki Lynn Hogan with faint praise and
mounds of manipulative movie melodrama.

We are first introduced to the woman in a surreal bit of time travel. A
young Vicki Lynn looks in the mirror and sees her slutty future self. Before we
know it, Ma (Virginia Madsen, Candyman)
and Pa are a-fussin' and a-fightin' leaving their young-un looking for some
pleasure in life. As a teen, Vicki finds it in underage sex. One unexpected
young-un of her own later, and exotic dancing becomes a calling. With the help
of some DD implants, Vicki becomes Anna Nicole, and soon the tabloid tales start
falling into place. There's the May to VERY, VERY late in December romance with
J. Howard Marshall (Martin Landau, Ed Wood),
the battles with his son E. Pierce (Cary Elwes, Saw) over his father's fortune, the involvement
both professionally and personally with lawyer Howard K. Stern (Adam Goldberg,
Zodiac), and the late in life tragedy of
her son's death. Not long after, Ms. Smith takes a similar nosedive into
addiction, scandal, and a far too young dirt nap.

Mary Harron of I Shot Andy Warhol and The Notorious Betty Page
fame should be ashamed. Her previous films glorified a more pro-feminist
approach to material as diverse as an assassination attempt on a famous figure
and a pre-post-modern pin-up model. But here, it's all about the sleazy and the
seedy. Granted, that's what Anna Nicole's story was: how the promise of sex and
the selling of same lead one woman down a wrong-headed path toward social
stigmas and struggles. There is no denying why this particular powder puff was
famous. She had large breasts and a "come hither" hum that made it seem like she
was ready, willing, and always available. Even during her later public
humiliations, when she appeared semi-coherent and holding onto the last brain
cell for dear life, there was still a bed and breakfast quality to her persona.
She's wasn't a comedian, she was comedy. She was slapstick and scatology wrapped
up in an oversized brassiere and BJ lips.

This abysmal excuse for a biopic changes none of that. Anna Nicole is never
viewed as misunderstood or marginalized by the media. Instead, she is seen as
slightly stupid, naive to a San Andreas fault, and constantly seeking the
approval she would NEVER ever be able to earn legitimately. She was a heavily
made-up clown with a fetching bosom as her exploding cigar, and her late in life
decades-long meltdown was proof of her personal demonology. Perhaps what this
lax film should have focused on was the wrongheaded move to turn the otherwise
Playboy posing stripper into a movie star. She didn't have it, and
forcing it out of her made for many of her lingering issues. Naturally, Anna
Nicole just skims over this, riding wave after wave of pointless pandering
until the next commercial break comes along. Of course, by the first fifteen or
so minutes, all we are looking for is the end card.

As DVDs go, Sony's Anna Nicole isn't bad. It offers a clean and crisp
1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image, a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and some subtitles.
No bonus features. No Harron commentary. No actor/actress interviews. Just the
basics. At least the film is colorful and the dialogue is easily discernible. Of
course, nothing technical can save you from the skeezy experience on display
here.

Anna Nicole Smith may have been a cruel, commercial joke, but she was a
human being. Treated her like so much TMZ trash is just one of Anna
Nicole's many misgivings.